


The Truth, Part One

by Seasider



Series: The Truth [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Crack Treated Seriously, Drama, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Teenager with an Attitude!, Underage Drug/Alcohol Use, father & son relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:01:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24564289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seasider/pseuds/Seasider
Summary: As a child, Luke was told the true identity of his father; the burden of that knowledge changed him. Now he’s 15 and running wild on Tatooine. Vader finds him— but not until Part 2.
Relationships: Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader
Series: The Truth [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1775602
Comments: 50
Kudos: 194





	1. Prologue: The Best of Intentions

**Author's Note:**

> You know how sometimes something unbelievably wonderful happens and you feel absolutely ecstatic??? No, me neither. But wow, this is the closest I’ve come to feeling this way in a long time. With lots of advice, suggestions, and encouragement, I’m posting The Truth to Ao3. Because I don’t have the original files, I thought I’d never get it copied and reformatted from FFN. But TA-DA! Here it is. Happy Happy Happy me. :)
> 
> To catch up with FFN posts, I’ll be posting this in separate parts of 10 chapters each, which should take about a week. I’ll update the tags as needed. The story includes a little bit of everything, including a few unsavory bits, but I’ll warn you beforehand and they are the minority of the story.
> 
> Powering down now…. Thanks for reading and I hope you like it! It’s been a labor of love for… well, I started in 2005, wrote a few years, took a long break, and I’m back. Enjoy!
> 
> ———-

When he was five years old, they told him the truth. The smallest details of that day were engraved on his memory. He was certain they were memories, because no one had ever talked about that day again. But the pictures in his mind were as vivid as if he had just opened his eyes and looked at them. ...Playing in the mound of sand he'd built in the center of the courtyard, hearing the adults' raised voices, Owen and Beru and Ben calling him inside...

He was only five and, for better or for worse, the path of his life was changed forever.

"Sit here next to me, dear," Aunt Beru said.

Luke climbed onto the sofa beside her, and she put her arm around him. He flew his toy speeder across her lap, making zooming noises until she took it away. "Pay attention, Luke. Uncle Owen and Uncle Ben have something to tell you."

"About school?" he asked eagerly. "It's only three days!" Three days until he could go to school in Anchorhead - finally! All the kids would be there, even the older ones. He was so thrilled, he could hardly wait.

"Partly," Uncle Owen said. "Luke..." He squatted on the floor and leaned forward, his big hand curling around Luke's shoulder. "You need to stop doing those...things...that you do. You can't do them at school."

"What things?" Probably those things that made Uncle Owen mad, but he didn't know how he did them and he sure didn't know how to stop doing them.

"Don't be difficult, Luke. You know what I mean."

"Let me," Uncle Ben interrupted gently.

Uncle Owen returned to his chair and sat scowling at them. "I hope you know what you're doing."

"Luke, you have a special gift," Uncle Ben began.

"Can I have it now?" he asked excitedly. "What is it?"

Uncle Owen grumbled something.

"You already have the gift," Uncle Ben said. "You can do things that very few people can. You know things that other people don't. Not many people are like you."

"You are." That's what Uncle Owen said. _Just like damned old Ben,_ and sounded angry when he said it.

"Yes, I am," he agreed. "You and I can do these special things. But you must not let anyone else know that you and I are different."

"Are we bad?" he asked doubtfully. That's what Uncle Owen said.

"No, just different," Uncle Ben said slowly. "Luke, I have to tell you secrets that you must never, ever tell anyone. Only you and me and Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen know. These are very special secrets, dangerous secrets, and I'm asking you to be a grown-up about them and never repeat what I tell you. Can you promise not to tell?"

"I promise," he agreed enthusiastically. He liked secrets. "I know lots of secrets and I never tell."

“That's good. But these are especially secret secrets. If you tell anyone, I could die. And you might die, too. People would kill us."

Now he didn't like these secrets. He was scared. He'd seen animals dead in the desert, and once he'd found a lizard that was really sick and he'd stayed with it while it died. It made him sad when it just lay there in the sand, empty.

He stuck his thumb in his mouth. Aunt Beru took it out, saying absently, "Don't put dirty fingers in your mouth, Luke," and held his hand.

"You and I have the power to access the Force," Uncle Ben said. "The Force is an energy field that surrounds us and - Well, it lets us do special things that other people can't do."

"Like magic?"

"Sort of." Uncle Ben sighed. "Some people who use the Force are called Jedi. I used to be a Jedi."

"Am I a Jedi?" Luke interrupted.

"No, but you could have been," Uncle Ben said, looking sad. "Right around the time you were born, all the Jedi were killed by the Emperor and Darth Vader. I escaped and I have been hiding here."

Luke thought about this. He'd seen holos of the Emperor and Darth Vader. They both looked scary, and Uncle Owen said they were really mean. "Did they get killed 'cause they were bad?"

"No, Jedi were good."

"Then why did they get killed?"

"Sometimes good people die, Luke, when evil people want to destroy all the good in the galaxy. Do you understand why you can never tell anyone about you and me? And you can never let anyone know that you can do magic. That means you can't call your toys to you; you have to go over and pick them up. You can't tell people when something is going to happen before it happens - like when a sandstorm is coming or when Tuskens are going to attack."

"But..." Luke stopped, overwhelmed. "Those are good things. To help people."

"I know. But you can't do that anymore. You will find other ways to help people."

He cuddled closer to Aunt Beru. She smelled good, like cookies. "Okay."

"You understand?"

He nodded, pouting. "But I don't like it!"

"Neither do I, Luke." Uncle Ben glanced at Uncle Owen. "There's something else I have to tell you."

"I still say it's a bad idea," Uncle Owen said harshly.

"It's necessary," Uncle Ben replied shortly. "Luke, it's about your father."

He put his thumb back in his mouth. This time Aunt Beru let him keep it there. He didn't like to talk about his daddy or his mommy. They died when Luke was very little and that still made him feel sad.

"There's no easy way - " Uncle Ben paused and sighed again. "Luke, we didn't tell you the entire truth about your father. We told you he was a spice smuggler and a bad man. The truth is, your father is more than bad. He is... evil. He killed all the Jedi. He tried to kill me. If he found you, he would kill you. Or he would make you be evil like him."

That was a lot to think about. He felt a tear slip down his face. He thought his daddy was only regular bad, but he was really really bad? His daddy killed people? How could his daddy want to kill him? "But he's dead."

"No, he isn't dead. He's - "

"Ben!"

"I have to tell him, Owen. He has to know. It's the only way to protect him." Uncle Ben's finger went under Luke's chin and tilted his head up so their eyes met. "Luke, your father is Darth Vader."


	2. No Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke bears the burden of learning the truth about his father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for teenage drug and alcohol use.

Contrasting the clarity of that day, his memory of the long-awaited first day of school was blurred. Of course, over a decade had passed since then, so maybe he didn't remember simply because it had been boring. He did remember that he'd thought a lot about his father, feeling dazed and confused; he remembered because he still felt that way. When he was a child, My Dad the Smuggler had been a kick, an exciting, forbidden thing to boast about, and that was the lie Owen encouraged him to continue telling. But as he grew older, it had become something else, something darker. Luke Lars, the smuggler's bastard, they called him. Ugly as it was, he supposed it beat being known as Darth Vader's son, although that label might have given him respectability or at least fearful respect. Or maybe even self-respect.

In the old days, before he knew the truth, he'd been ignorantly happy with his life. Even at that young age, he and Biggs had tried some skyhopper racing behind Uncle Owen's back. He'd had dreams of adventure: flying in space, doing great things, being a hero.

All that had changed when he learned the terrible truth. His father was the weapon of the Emperor's wrath, the strong arm of the Empire. Luke had to be careful not to use the Force for even the smallest things, to always pretend and lie... or he would turn out the same.  _ You would become evil like him. _

To hell with all of it. Luke pulled the hat farther down on his face as he leaned back into the patch of shade offered by the 'hopper.

"So you're not going to school at all?" his best friend asked.

"Screw school." He drew a long draft from the glitterstim stick, blowing out puffs of smoke into well-practiced globes. He'd tried every variety of cheap, low-quality spices that he could buy or steal, but glitt was his favorite because it could make him forget who he was.

"But the university placement test is today," Fixer said nervously.

"So? Why do you care? We're screwed anyway. Our grades are so bad, we'll never get off this rock."

"Yeah, I'll be stuck running this place. At least you can be a smuggler like your old man, get to travel."

The label would never leave him. "You're such an ass," he snapped, irritated. "You think it's an inheritance, like I'm automatically the member of some damned labor union?"

"How in hells would I know? I'm just a mechanic, always will be."

"Then why are you worried about the placement test?" he asked shrewdly. "You don't need a degree to fix engines."

"I'm not worried. I just thought..."

"Go then. Quit your friggin' whining and go!"

"I'm not going if you're not going."

He swore under his breath. "Damnit - go." There was more emphasis in his voice than he'd intended, and he realized guiltily that he had just used It... the Force, the bane of his life. He wished It would just go away.

"Fine, I'm goin'!" Fixer yelled, pushing himself off the ground.

"Fine."

After his friend stomped away, Luke ground the stick into the sand and closed his eyes, pretending he was in space and couldn't hear the muted sounds of Anchorhead echoing from the other side of the Station. There was no point in taking the test. Even if he passed - and he probably would, despite his lacking of studying - Owen would never let him leave Tatooine. In a few years, he could go on his own... but should he? He hated to agree with his uncle, but the logic was irrefutable: Luke Lars was dangerous. He carried the blood of Darth Vader in his veins along with the same destructive potential, the same evil. The galaxy doesn't need another Vader, his uncle declared often enough, and Beru always nodded in sorrowful agreement, her dark eyes holding a hint of fear as she studied Luke. Her expression haunted him and, now that he was older, he realized she had always looked at him that way.

But was it possible that anyone could be all bad? He'd seen the Dark Lord on newsvids and read about his exploits, his military campaigns, the political reforms he instituted that seemed to occur with less frequency as the years passed and the Empire strengthened. Luke thought it was only natural to be curious about his father and want to know him. It wasn't fair that they were apart. Unless the things Ben had told him were true. Maybe Vader would see him as a threat and kill him, or turn him evil. But maybe he wouldn't. If only there were some way he could see Vader, even just observe him from afar, just to get an idea what he was like...

Luke levered himself up to reach one of the brews he'd stashed in the back of the speeder. Popping the lid, he tilted his head back and swallowed a cool mouthful. A shadow fell across his face, and he glanced up from beneath the brim of his hat.

"Playing hooky, Lars?"

"What of it?"

Biggs Darklighter dropped onto the sand next to him. "Fixer says you're not taking the placement test."

"No point." Why was Biggs bothering with him anyway? They hadn't been friends for years, a long time before Biggs went off-planet to school. "What're you doing here?"

"Semester's over, I'm on break. Then I'm heading for the Academy. Officer training."

There was only one place young Tatooine males meant when they said "the Academy" in such reverent tones. The Imperial Naval Academy, the training ground for pilots and ground crew. They accepted almost anyone for ground crew school, but to be an officer and a fighter pilot - that meant you were the best of the best. Even an insignificant backworld like Tatooine could produce a Navy pilot. "Congratulations," Luke said dully, chugging the rest of the brew.

"You could do it, too, if you applied yourself," Biggs replied, sounding like his teachers.

"I'm never leaving Tatooine."

"Why not? Just a couple more years and you'll be free. There's nothing to be afraid of."

"I'm not afraid!" he snapped furiously. Hurtling the empty bottle aside, he reached for another.

"Right," Biggs drawled. "You'd rather be a loser and a drunk than take a chance and get out. Move to Mos Eisley then; you'll fit right in with the rest of the failures."

Luke glared at the bottle. This is what had come between him and Biggs in the first place - the truth. Biggs didn't understand - couldn't understand the dangers he faced, and Luke couldn't tell him the truth. No one could know, ever. He maintained a sullen silence, resisting his desire to explain. The truth would only make everything worse. So much worse.  _ Hi, I'm Luke Vader. Maybe you've heard of my dad. _

"I wish you would talk to me. Maybe I could help." After a moment, Biggs added: "Is it Owen? Has he hurt you?"

"How many times do I have to say 'no'?" His anger dwindled into weariness. "It's not him, it's me. Just me."

"Stars, Luke!" Biggs shook his head, frustrated. "I can't help you if you won't tell me - "

"I didn't ask for your help." And there's nothing you can do, anyway.

"Right," his companion said. "Well, good luck to you. You'll need it. I'll...maybe we'll meet each other again one day."

Luke watched silently as the older youth rose and walked away. "Biggs!" he called suddenly. "Good luck!" And be careful, he added silently.

Then he stretched out his legs, crossed them at the ankle, and settled down to do what Biggs and everyone else expected of him: get drunk.


	3. Who’s Anakin?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He drinks, he lies, he steals... but there must be a heart under there somewhere, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teenage drinking. He drives drunk. Has a smart mouth. Bad Luke.  
> ————

Coming in too fast, he clipped the edge of the speeder's fender on the garage entry. He didn't care, but it made enough noise to bring Owen and Beru rushing to the scene. Luke ignored them and concentrated on finishing parking very carefully before climbing out of the speeder. His foot hooked on the door and he fell. Picking himself up, cursing, he reached inside and switched off the engine.

"You're drunk!" Owen raised his voice even though he was only an arm's-length away.

"Tell me somethin' I don' know." Luke pushed past him, heading for his room.

"Oh, Luke," Aunt Beru sighed sadly, but he didn't respond, in no mood for another endless lecture about how disappointed she was in him. "We trusted you not to do this again."

"No you di'n't, you never trusted me," he slurred.

"Of course we — "

"Yeah, when? Maybe when I was three, did you trust me when I was three?" he shouted over his shoulder as he stumbled through the passage.

"He's just like his damned father," he heard Owen tell Beru, and fury rose inside him, heating his face and blinding his vision. How dare they?

"Anakin was never a drunk."

Luke paused behind the doorway, struggling to control his anger as he strained to hear them.  _ Anakin?  _ He'd never heard that name before. Fumbling for a stylus, he scribbled it on his palm.

"I wish we could enlist the damn kid and get him some discipline - but there'd be hell to pay if..."

Their voices became indistinct murmurs. Staggering to his desk, Luke flipped open his datapad and scratched 'Anakin' on it, just to be absolutely certain he would remember it in the morning. Then he flopped onto his bed, closed his eyes against the spinning room, and fell unconscious.

It was afternoon before Luke felt awake enough to get up. He vaguely remembered Owen trying to rouse him at dawn to go work on 'vaporators before school, but to hell with that. He indulged in a quick sonic shower, then detoured to the kitchen to grab a leftover drumstick from the cooling unit. Back in his room, he remembered that he'd scratched something on his hand the night before. It was smeared and unreadable. He looked at the datapad lying open on his desk. Yeah. Something… He snatched it up. 'nikn'. What the hell was nikn? No, that wasn't it, but close... inikn, enikn, anikn... Anakin. Beru said something about Anakin being his... No, that couldn't be. His father was Darth Vader.

Wasn't he?

Luke inhaled sharply. Had they been lying to him all these years? His heart raced faster as a feeling he hesitated to identify as 'hope' rose in it. He wished he could confront Ben and ask him what the real truth was, but Kenobi was gone, killed by Tuskens during a raid years earlier. The idiot, throwing his life away trying to save some kid they'd snatched. The brat had died anyway. A fool's death, just like Owen had said. Protect your own. Never die for a stranger.

Whatever. Back to 'Anakin'. Maybe it was simply another name for Vader. Or maybe not. Either way, he needed to find out, and it was a sure bet that Owen and Beru would never tell him the truth, not if they'd kept this secret from him for this long. They must have hated him a lot to have told him that Vader was his father. Fine, the hell with them. Mos Eisley had better databases than Anchorhead. He would skip school - well, not today, no point since the day was half over - tomorrow and go into Eisley to do some research.

Hells, maybe he could even enlist. Maybe he could get into the Academy as a mechanic.

He vowed to be on his best behavior for the rest of the day so Owen would have no reason to be suspicious.

On second thought, his best behavior would make Owen suspicious.

With a yawn, Luke returned to bed to dream about a faceless stranger named Anakin who welcomed him with arms held open.

————-

"You're not taking the speeder this morning."

Luke scratched his head and a strand of hair fell into his breakfast cereal. He fished it out and stretched it on the table where it swam in a small trail of milk. "Fine. You can drive me to school."

Predictably, his uncle declined. "I don't have time for that," Owen growled. "Damnit, if you take the speeder, I don't want so much as one more scratch on it."

"Whatever," he drawled, knowing how that response pissed off his uncle.

"I expect you to pay for the damage you did."

"Take it out of my pay." As if Owen ever paid him for his work.

"Get a damn job! And don't dilly-dally after school, I need you back here."

"Dilly-dally?" he repeated. "I never dilly and hardly ever dally. At least not when anyone can see me."

Owen pushed back his chair. "Your smart mouth will be the death of you one day."

"You wish," he called, but his uncle was already out of the room.

"You shouldn't bait him like that," Beru remonstrated gently.

Luke shrugged. "We'll never get along. Just accept it." He stood. "See you later." Maybe.

After Beru went back to her kitchen, he raided Owen's 'secret' hiding place, drawing a fistful of credits from the niche before sliding the door back into place. Then he threw a backpack with some clothes in the back of the speeder, just in case the Imps let him enlist. The dent in the fender was deeper than he had expected, and there were long white scrapes gouged into the dusty red finish. He rubbed his sleeve on them, but they didn't disappear, so he quit trying. Lifting the speeder out of the garage, he pressed the accelerator all the way down and took off like a laser shot. Wind rushed through his hair, occasionally snapping it into his eyes as he sent the vehicle through some sharp turns that it wasn't designed for. It stalled once, but he managed to restart it and zipped past the outskirts of Anchorhead on his way to Mos Eisley.

Reaching the city, he slowed down and entered at the garrison end, knowing the guards were used to seeing him and would just wave him through without a demand to see his papers. This city-entry inspection was stupid, really, considering the Imps didn't monitor the docking bays. All the excitement came from off-world, not from the boring moisture farmers or chattering Jawas.

He nodded to the trooper, not bothering to stop, and the white-armored figure gave him a disinterested flap of his hand. Luke cruised through the streets, checking out the action, which wasn't much at this hour. All the entertaining people were probably still asleep with hangovers.

He parked the speeder outside Offlander's Cantina, shouldered his backpack, and wandered indoors.

"Lars." Granv nodded at him from behind the bar, setting up his usual cheap Corellian ale. "How's school?" the man asked dryly.

He flipped a few coins on the counter and snorted. "Friggin' boring and a waste of my valuable time."

"Like you have so many more important things to do," the man mocked.

Luke narrowed his eyes. Alderaanis always acted like they were better than everyone else. "You bet," he replied easily. "I'm planning a big career following in your footsteps, serving scumbags in a filthy dive."

"As if you have any better prospects." Green eyes flashed at him. "You'll be dead before you're thirty."

"I hope so, I'd hate to get as old as you," he said flippantly. He downed half the ale. "Actually, I'm thinkin' of enlisting."

Granv smiled slightly. "Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?"

Flushing, Luke finished the warm beverage in two swallows. "I'm a little smart for a stormtrooper, bro. You won't catch me on the front lines, risking my life so some ugly old man can own another planet."

"Talking treason, boy." Granv took his empty mug and waved him away. "Get on with you. Go harass someone else."

With a sloppy salute, Luke grinned before departing.


	4. Luke Tries to Enlist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title says it all.

The Central Databank was open, but with nothing to go on other than "Anakin", his search was hopeless. There were a gazillion Anakins in the galaxy, but not one named Anakin Vader or even Anakin Lars. What kind of galaxy was it where a kid didn't know his father's real name, Luke wondered wistfully. He didn't bother to look up Darth Vader; he'd done it so often that he'd memorized the Dark Lord's publicity blurbs.

Jedi and Sith and Force stuff were more interesting but harder to find. Mostly there were vague references to their sorcery, dismissing Jedi magic as sleight-of-hand and hinting that Sith magic was far superior and infinitely more secret. Over the last couple years he'd gotten some ideas to practice, like moving things around and using his voice to command others. What he really wanted to do was fly without a ship, but he hadn't found any references to that and wasn't yet ready to jump off a cliff to see if he could do it.

Finding nothing new about the Force had been added to the database, he left the Databank and wandered over to the garrison. A uniformed man was at the gate instead of a trooper, and Luke didn't know him.

"Hi." He leaned on the ledge of the gatehouse window.

The soldier gave him a bored look. "Whatever you're selling, we don't want any."

"I'm selling myself," Luke snapped, then bit his lip. "I mean - "

"I know what you mean, and you should go to a brothel for that."

"I mean I want to enlist!" he declared indignantly. "I'm a mechanic."

"Uh-huh." The man eyed him skeptically. "What are you, about twelve years old?"

"I'm eighteen!" he lied.  _ Twelve? _

"Uh-huh. On your left, Room C."

"Okay." Well, that was easier than he'd thought it would be. Luke walked through the dusty yard, wondering if he really wanted to enlist. The uniforms were pretty cool looking. Maybe he could be an officer instead of a mechanic. The mechanics wore baggy gray jumpsuits and all looked alike. Trooper armor was the coolest, but then he'd get shot at. Besides, he'd heard that a lot of troopers were still clones so they probably wouldn't accept him.

The sign outside Room C said Recruiting with changeable lettering that today read "Lt. Jovay". Luke peered around the doorway. A young uniformed man sat at a table looking very serious as he studied a datascreen.

"Hi."

The officer jumped and hastily closed whatever he'd been looking at. His face flushed slightly.

"Come in. How may I be of assistance?"

Wow, he was polite! Luke decided to copy him. "I'm interested in enlisting. I'm pretty good with my hands. As a mechanic, I mean. Do you...um, have any openings?"

"We always have openings," Jovay said, chuckling. He was human and a bit older than he'd looked at first glance. "How old are you?"

"Eighteen."

One eyebrow raised. "How old are you?"

Luke hesitated. "Uh...seventeen."

The lieutenant rested his chin in one palm, focusing green eyes on him. "How old are you?"

"Nearly sixteen," he confessed in a mumble, stretching the truth by several months.

"Come back and see us in two years." The dark head bent over a datapad.

Frowning, Luke folded his arms and didn't budge. "Don't you have a junior brigade or something?"

Jovay looked up and laughed, leaning back in his chair. "Sorry, kid. Good try, though."

"If I come back in two years," he persisted, "can I really sign up? Can we check to see if I'm eligible?" If he said he was the son of Darth Vader, odds were that they'd let him into the Navy in a heartbeat. Probably as an officer. Maybe even an admiral.

"Sure." Either the officer liked his spirit or he was bored, because he opened a new screen and his fingers poised on the keyboard. "Name?"

"Luke Lars." He leaned forward eagerly. "I live outside Anchorhead with my aunt and uncle and I really want to get - "

"No such person," Jovay announced. "Want to give me your real name?"

"Oh." He gnawed his lower lip, considering. "Try 'Luke Vader'."

Jovay frowned at him. "I don't have time for games, kid. Come back when you grow up."

"I'm not - " He gave up. "Okay. But could you just...you know, check that name?”

The man studied him. "Are you an orphan?"

There was a crack in the military facade that Luke could work to his advantage. He nodded solemnly. "I don't know who my parents were. My guardian likes to compare me to Lord Vader, so I thought maybe... I know that's stupid, but..."

A bout of coughing didn't succeed in totally covering the laughter. "I'll check." Jovay typed something, then looked at the screen. "It says here that Lord Vader has no offspring."

"Oh." He hadn't expected confirmation, but it was still disappointing.

"You could have a blood test," Jovay said. "That would tell you the names of your parents."

"Could you do it?" he asked eagerly.

"Sorry, I can only do it for legitimate recruits." Jovay sounded genuinely regretful. "But there are several places in town that will do that for you."

"I don't have much money."

"Then try Murino's on Curved Street. He's cheaper than the rest, and you'll get the same results that you would anywhere."

"Wow, thanks!" Luke exclaimed enthusiastically. "You've been great! I'll see you in two years!"

The officer smiled and nodded, and Luke bounded out the door in search of his destiny.


	5. Blood Test

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Curiosity and what it leads to.

He started on his way to Murino's, determined to stop nowhere, but Curved Street was full of interesting things to see. Some places - well, he just liked to peek in the windows and watch until he was chased away. After a few sneaky looks at activities he suspected weren't entirely legal in any galaxy, he wandered into Kaslah's Parlor, one of his favorite haunts.

"Hi, Ka!" he called cheerfully to the old woman who was bending over a Rodian's rump, giving him a neon yellow tattoo that showed up very brightly on his green exterior.

"Yuh," she mumbled, tilting her head to examine her artistry from another angle.

"You'd better hope he doesn't - "

"Mind dat mouth, boy!" Her grin took the edge off her words. "C'mere, give Ka sweetums."

"Ewww," he protested loudly, but complied, brushing his lips against the sun-ravaged skin on her forehead. Folding his arms, he watched her laserpen create an unfamiliar design. "What is it?"

The Rodian replied something incomprehensible. Luke doubted he would have understood even if the being's face hadn't been burrowed into the mat.

"Der god symbol," Ka said. "You here fer dat 'too you keep talkin' 'bout?"

"Only if it's free."

"Huh! You buyin' glitt today?"

"Maybe later, if I have enough credits left."

"Done. Up, you!" She slapped the Rodian's butt. "What buyin' today?"

Maybe a set of parents. "Stuff, nothing special." He averted his eyes from the Rodian redressing and opened Ka's cooler. "Can I have a brew?" he asked rhetorically, flipping off the top and taking a swallow.

"I go broke wi' cus'mers like you, boy. Good ting you so pretty ta see."

A blush warmed his cheeks, but he pretended not to hear her compliment. "Thanks for the brew. I'll come back later."

"You buy glitt, I give you 'too free. Maybe dat x-wing you likin'."

"That'd be great," he said fervently. "See you!"

Wow, he'd look terrific with the x-wing tattoo on his left shoulder! It could do battle with the TIE fighter already emblazoned on his right. Careful not to spill the ale, he flexed his arms out in front of him, imagining how envious Fixer would be. Fixer's folks wouldn't let him get tattooed. Of course, Owen and Beru wouldn't let Luke do it either, which is why he never showed it to them. Or let them know what he really did while he was supposed to be in school or at Tosche. Like he always said, what they didn't know would never hurt him.

Entertained by his own cleverness, he belatedly discovered he had passed Murino's and had to double back. It was a real hole-in-the-wall, not even a door. Pushing aside beaded curtains, he stepped inside and immediately wrinkled his nose in distaste. What a mess! A single bare table with two stiff chairs on opposite sides, all coated with a fine layer of Tatooine's finest sand. One interior door, closed.

"Anybody here? Hey! You got a customer!"

No reply. He tried the door — locked - and prowled impatiently around the small room. "Hurry up! I don't have all day!" Plopping into a chair, he drank the rest of the brew, anxious to finish it before it got warm.

The door clicked, then opened. A redheaded man entered, hastily buttoning his shirt. He was probably a Corellian. They always found time for their assorted and varied pleasures.

"Good morning," the man said in a cultured voice, and Luke revised his opinion to Disgraced Alderaani, Banished to Tatooine. "I am Ewani Murino. How may I be of assistance?" He sat behind the desk without offering his hand. Definitely Alderaani, the snobs of the galaxy.

"I'm Luke, no last name. That's what I'm looking for."

Murino nodded; obviously he'd heard similar requests many times. "A blood test. Fifty credits."

"Fifty?" Luke exclaimed. He'd expected it to be three times higher.

With a vague gesture of his hand, Murino said, "Forty, then. Can't go lower."

He blinked a few times. "Forty it is," and handed over the credits.

"Thank you." The Alderaani went into the back room and returned with an old-fashioned, oversized datapad that he put on the table. "Push up your sleeve."

Luke obeyed. "Will it hurt?"

"Of course. Is that a problem?"

What a strange question! "Uh..."

"For a painless test, go to Quesnel's and pay five hundred credits." Murino pulled a dirty cord out of his back pocket and tied it around Luke's upper arm, since they both knew he didn't have five hundred credits. "Say 'ah'."

"Why?"

"Joke." The man sighed. "You people never understand jokes."

He was tempted to make a smart reply, but Murino had an ancient-style hypo in his hand - one with a needle, for sith's sake! - so Luke had no intention of offending him. "Sorry."

"Not your fault. Brought up badly. Working class." Murino smiled and jabbed the needle into Luke's arm.

"YOW!" he yelped, involuntary tears filling his eyes. "Kritpeth! Does it have to hurt that much?"

"Mmm... no, I enjoy inflicting pain," the Alderaani murmured absently.

Luke looked away from the vial slowly filling with blood. His blood. He felt queasy. "I thought you only needed a drop of blood for a test."

"True." The man squeezed his arm as if to pump out the blood faster. "The rest is for my collection."

Luke groaned and hoped the guy was kidding. "Is it almost over?" he asked weakly.

"I'm done. You can open your eyes." Murino pulled the needle out of his arm, untied the band, slapped a steripatch on the wound, and reached in his pocket again. He pulled out something small and stamped the back of Luke's hand. "A medal for your bravery."

Irritably, Luke rubbed at the inked likeness of an Imperial Medal of Honor. "Thanks a lot."

"Welcome. Buck up. In just a minute more, you'll know who your parents are." Murino manipulated the datapad. "Galactic Database... Medical... Do you need both father and mother? ...DNA..."

"Both of them." Excitement filled him. In the midst of his pain, he'd momentarily forgotten why he was going through this. He leaned forward, sliding to the edge of the chair.

"Don't fall off and sue me. Huh, both parents. What'd they do, dump you here?"

"I doubt it," he replied coldly. "They probably died."

"Of course." The tone was one of polite disbelief... then it changed abruptly. "Oh, kritpeth demrat!" Murino cursed violently. "Krit! Give me your datapad - quick!"

"What?" Luke panicked, throwing off his backpack and fumbling through it for the datapad.

"Hurry!" Murino cursed again. "No wonder you don't know who your father is - godsdamnit, where's your datapad?"

Luke found it and threw it at him. "What's wrong?"

The Alderaani downloaded his information, then tossed the datapad back to him. "Now get out of here. My inquiry sent an immediate notification to the Imps, and it'll be forwarded to the base in a few minutes. They'll be after you."

He stood, bewildered. "But... I don't understand!" If Vader really was his father, why should he be afraid of stormtroopers?

Murino grabbed his arm and hustled him toward the beaded exit. "You're a Jedi's kid," he hissed. "The Imps kill Jedi kids...and now they know you're here. Get out of here - off-planet if you can. And destroy that datapad once you've read it. Krit!" He looked at his own pad and the vial of blood. "I'm screwed, too." There was a pause. "But I'll talk my way out of it." Murino looked at Luke. "Which are you, deaf or stupid? Don't you understand? Get out, hide - if you want to live."

Luke ran. After a block, he realized he was attracting attention, so he slowed and matched his gait to the other casual strollers in the business district. But his heart was racing and he could barely grab a breath.

_ Jedi’s kid? _

Just who the hell _was_ his father?


	6. Luke Gets A Name

He took a shortcut through Shezar's Emporium and wound his way to Pleasure Street where he slipped into a narrow alley, hopefully unseen by anyone of authority. The datapad was slick from his sweating palm, so he wiped it on his shirtsleeve before switching it on. Heart pounding, he took a deep breath to steady himself and began to read.

There wasn't much, just bare bones to lure him on a search for details. But the names were there. Names, homeworlds... and one more notation.

**_Ancestry:_ **

**_Anakin Skywalker, Tatooine_ **

**_Padme Naberrie, Naboo_ **

**_ALERT: Jedi_ **

_ Skywalker. _

_ Anakin Skywalker. _

"Luke Skywalker," he whispered. He shivered, his eyes misting for a moment before he blinked them clear.

A name. At last he had a name, one that belonged to him and no one else. He wasn't Luke Lars or Luke Vader. He was Luke Skywalker.

It was a fine name.

He slipped the datapad into his backpack. No way was he destroying it! He wanted to be able to look at the names and hold them in his hand when he needed to be reminded that he had parents. In fact... maybe he could find out more about them right now!

Forcing himself not to run, he walked as quickly as he was able to the library archives. It was underground, beneath an emporium, unposted and unadvertised, and seemed to be frequented rarely. In fact, he'd never anyone else in it except the librarian. Luke had happened upon it by chance one day when he was exploring, and it was the source of much Jedi information that he hadn't found in the Galactic Database. The information was historical and mostly dull as dust, but today he had a purpose - today he had a name.

The elderly librarian was sound asleep as usual, so Luke tiptoed past him and around the stacks of dusty datadisks until he saw the wall that had a small flap close to the floor. It looked like it was covering a vent, but he knew better. He crawled through it and slid down a ramp that led to the concealed room. It was cool with a hint of dampness, and he had to squat in front of the old screen because the low ceiling wouldn't accommodate even his less-than-impressive height. It was as if someone had wanted to hide the room, which seemed ridiculous because he'd found it easily.

The screen took its sweet time flickering on, as if it was deliberately testing Luke's patience. Eventually it was as ready as it was going to get, and he drew a deep breath before typing in a single word:  _ skywalker _ .

Krit, he hated this old machine because it binged and bonged and clicked so loudly it could wake up the dead... although not, apparently, the old librarian. It took forever, probably two whole minutes, before data began marching across the screen. He squinted at the jumbled bright letters streaming across the dark background, wishing desperately that he could download what it was spitting out, but its ancient port wasn't compatible with today's datacards, even the older type like he had. Part of the screen winked on and off, and he struggled to grab whatever words he could.  _...akin... ywalker... edi Knight... pilot... Clone Wa... warrior... Jedi Council... to Chancellor Palpa... missing, presumed de... _

Krit, krit, krit! His teeth ground together with the effort of not shouting the words aloud when the screen went black. Frustrated, he pounded the side of the monitor with his fist and - it came back to life.

But this screen was different, promising a graphics selection. Could it be a holo of his dad? Or his mom? Or both of them? Excited, Luke tapped the icon and waited for another endless download. When it finally finished - oh, it was a moving holo, those were so rare! Before he could consider the semi-miracle he'd been offered, a shaky scene appeared, old-style fighters exploding across the screen, zipping past and looping around each other in a ferocious battl -

"What are you doing in there?"

Luke slammed his hand on the off switch, leaped to his feet, hit his head on the ceiling, yelped in pain and screeched "Nothin'!" while he scrambled on all fours past the librarian, then ran for the exit to the street. The old man didn't follow him, and he hoped the guy wouldn't report him to the Imps. And he probably wouldn't, considering he was hiding Jedi information in his library.

Once on the street, Luke slowed and considered what he'd just learned. Not much, but enough to know that his father was an amazing pilot, a great Jedi, and something to Palpatine... an aide or a foe? He was determined to figure it out.

And where was his father? Missing, presumed dead wasn't the same thing as dead. He was certain that a hero Jedi would never abandon his child, so what had happened to him? What if...

What if his father or mother was alive? If he had any hope of finding them, he would need to access the genealogical records in the Galactic Database. But if the Empire monitored DNA research, they probably monitored everything. He would have to use a terminal that he could abandon quickly, a public one in a crowded place.

It wasn't something he dared do today. He needed to get home and confront Owen and Beru. Why had they lied to him? He wasn't Vader's son; he was the child of a Jedi Knight, a legend, a defender of the weak and helpless. Jedi Skywalker. All the magic he could do was because he came from a Jedi, not from a Sith - how dare they lie to him! "Ben, why didn't you tell me?" he whispered. For a moment, he slumped against a wall, depressed by the betrayal. Then he shook himself back to reality.

Maybe he wouldn't go home. Why should he? He could find transport off this rock. It would have to be cheap transport, though, judging by the weight of the credit pouch in his pocket. Hells, he could work for transport. Ships always needed good mechanics. Or - he could sell the speeder! It would serve Owen right for lying to him, and it would raise enough credits for passage from Tatooine to somewhere better.

Relieved and excited that he had a plan, Luke trekked back to Outlander's Cantina. On the way, he spotted a torn and dirty cloak that someone discarded on a stack of trash. Shaking out the sand, he held it up and couldn't see any bugs or blood, so he swung it over his shoulders. Cringing, he pulled the hood onto his head. He hated being dirty - especially if it was someone else's dirt - but this disguise would make him less conspicuous, just in case stormtroopers really were looking for him. There had been no sign of activity so far, and he wondered if the Alderaani bloodsucker was simply an alarmist.

He rounded the corner onto Straight Street and stopped abruptly. Krit - troopers! He slouched against the building, pulling the cloak around him, wishing he had the ability to disappear. There was his red speeder.

And it was surrounded by a cadre of white-armored troopers and a uniformed officer.


	7. On the Run

Edging into a doorway, he peeked around the side of the building. Maybe they would leave. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe they were just standing around shooting the breeze and not actually looking for him.

Those wishes were smashed when a second officer joined the first. Luke recognized the lieutenant from the recruiting office. "Krit," he muttered in disgust. His immediate reaction was to panic and run, but there was nowhere to go. He needed a better disguise and a hideout. Maybe Ka could provide him with both.

There were troopers at the far end of Paradise Road, but none on Curved Street, so he hurried into Kaslah's Parlor, then strolled nonchalantly to the back room, hiding his face in the folds of the hooded cloak. Ka saw him, but said nothing as she continued to work on a human woman who was getting an ankle tattoo. Left alone, he raided her stash and crammed a handful of glitt sticks in the backpack he had slung under his arm. They'd be good for trading or selling, and he'd need something more substantial than a few credits and a smile to get him to safety.

He grabbed a waterstick from the counter and drank thirstily, then added a few more to his pack. By the time she entered, he was standing with his arms folded, looking completely innocent.

"You bad boy in trouble," she hissed at him as she wiped her hands on a stained towel.

"I need a place to stay until things cool down," he said in a low voice. "Just for a day or so."

"Not be here, no trouble here." She flapped the towel at him. "Go now!"

"I can't go," he whined. "There are troopers after me. I didn't do anything! They'll kill me!"

"Whiteheads!" Hands on her ample hips, the old woman glared at him. "You stealin'?"

"Of course not!" Palms raised in the air in a gesture of virtuousness. "They have me confused with someone else."

She snorted. "'Kay den. You stay, but you be quiet!"

He flashed her his widest smile. "Thanks, Ka, you're the best!"

She snorted again before moving slowly back to her customers.

The room was stuffy and warm, and he yawned. He was still keyed up, but it was safe to relax now, so he took a cold ale from the cooler, then prowled the cupboards looking for something decent to eat. She had a lot of food - business must be more profitable than it appeared - but none of it appealed to him. Something simple, like a banthaburger, would be great. Maybe she could get some decent food for him. He sidled to the door and looked for her. The shop was empty, so he walked cautiously through it. Then he caught a glimpse of her skirt outside the door and dodged to one side, edging closer to listen.

" - tell dem whiteheads," she was telling someone, "dat Luke here an' I wan' reward."

Momentarily frozen with shock at her treachery, he watched a small child run past the doorway on the errand, and then he backed up until he was plastered against a freestanding display of tattoo art. Ka entered and headed toward the back. He glared at her, unseen, before slipping out the door.

Uncle Owen was right about some things, he thought bitterly. You can't trust anyone.

After that lesson in duplicity, there was no way he was going to seek refuge with anyone he knew. They'd all sell him out for money. He wondered how much the Imps were offering for him. He doubled back to Paradise Road and searched through garbage bins in the tiny, crisscrossing alleyways. There wasn't much that could be considered useful, but eventually he found a partially used can of colorspray for his hair, some skinpaint, and a shard from a broken mirror. Carrying his discoveries, he settled on the ground between two bins, propped up the mirror fragment, and went to work.

Twenty minutes later, he had bright blue hair and dark red face and hands. He wasn't exactly sure what branch of the human species had that coloration, but there was bound to be one somewhere. He wouldn't be conspicuous among the motley visitors to Mos Eisley.

Better yet, he could hide out with the streetkids. He'd seen a little pink-haired girl earlier. He'd just have to track down their lair. In the meanwhile, he had a call to make. At a public callbox, he dropped in credits and entered Fixer's code, all the while watching for stormtroopers.

"Yeah?" The voice was slurred.

"It's me."

"Nah, I'm me."

"Knock it off," he snapped. "I'm in trouble. I need you to come and get me. In Eisley."

"What're you - "

"Don't ask questions. Just meet me as soon as you can at... that place we got thrown out of last time, remember?"

There was a yawn at the other end of the connection. "Luke, I can't do it tonight, I got stuff I gotta - "

"Then tomorrow! Just - look, bring whatever money you can scrape together. And some food."

"You really are in trouble." Fixer sobered abruptly. "Okay, tomorrow. As early as I can get there."

"Thanks." From somewhere he could hear the distinct sound of marching boots, so he hung up abruptly and ran back into the alley.

He'd be fine today, as long as he could keep away from the Imps. But the desert grew cold at night, and he would need to find shelter. With a sigh, Luke trudged off, wondering how his life could have changed so fast and so dramatically without him even lifting a finger.

It wasn't hard to find the streetkids. After a few inquiries, he was pointed in the direction of their leader, a girl his age with purple hair and a stern expression.

"You have to pay," she said flatly, in response to his request for food and shelter.

Fumbling in his pack, he found two glitt sticks and held them out. She didn't respond. With a dramatic sigh, he grudgingly offered a third, and this time she accepted. He slipped the food into his pack, knowing it would have to last him until Fixer arrived.

In the subterranean depths, it was impossible to differentiate between night and day. Every few hours, Luke made forays to the mouth of the passage, checking the location of the suns. When darkness fell, he relaxed. Fixer wouldn't come until mid-morning at the earliest. In the meanwhile, he was safer here in this cavern with other refugee kids than he would be with any of his so-called friends in the world above. With a yawn born of alcohol, stress and hot temperatures, he secured his pack under his head and used it as a pillow. Closing his eyes, he was asleep in minutes.

The next day dragged endlessly. Fixer didn't come. Luke kept racing anxiously between the hideout and the little cantina on Paradise Road that they'd been banned from for their behavior, rowdy even by Eisley standards. He didn't want to chance another call to his friend; it was risky enough dodging troopers and people who might recognize him. Surely the Imps would give up soon, believing that he'd gone off-planet or headed home.

He used the last of his pilfered glitt sticks to buy more food, then surrendered half his credits to the streetkids for watersticks after he drank the ones he'd taken from Ka. He didn't have enough money left to buy passage to anywhere, so hopefully Fixer had managed to liberate some from his parents' stash.

His stomach was twisted with anxiety by the time night came and Fixer still hadn't shown. Staying with the kids for many more days would be dangerous. Besides, the code of the street said that when he couldn't pay, he'd have to leave. At the rate he was spending his assets, he'd be tossed out by morning.

That night he lay awake watching the shadows that flickering torches splashed across the rough ceiling. He stared at them, mesmerized, as he listened to the sounds of sniffling and snoring and nightmares, to the sounds of the little ones who buried their faces in makeshift pillows and cried themselves to sleep. Enough credits flowed through Mos Eisley's gambling dens every hour to support a home for these lost children; hell, Jabba could house and feed them indefinitely without missing the money. One day, when he was rich and a famous Jedi, Luke Skywalker would come back here and build a home for all the homeless kids.

But he couldn't do anything now. He didn't know how to do any Jedi magic that would conjure food or a nice place to live. He could barely keep himself out of an Imperial prison cell. Eventually, exhausted, he fell into a fitful sleep.


	8. A Good Friend

It was late on the second morning when Fixer finally showed up. Luke had abandoned his sanctuary with the homeless kids and was trying to appear inconspicuous on the streets. But the red color was wearing off his hands and the interior of his hood was turning blue from the hair dye.

"You look like banthakrit," Fixer declared in a hushed tone, glancing around nervously. "What did you do?"

"Come on." Luke led his friend to a deserted underground doorway. It wasn't deep enough to feel comfortably safe, but it was the only shelter available. "Did you bring water?"

Wordlessly, Fixer handed him a waterstick and Luke gulped it down too fast. "Thanks," he gasped, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "What about money?"

Still silent, the other youth turned over a stack of credits that Luke quickly counted. "Five hundred?" he asked incredulously. "How'd you get so much? Won't your folks miss it?"

"My folks sent it." Fixer shook his head. "Luke - "

"Troopers are after me. I didn't do anything! Did you bring something to eat?"

"Luke - " A small bag of cereal was offered. "Luke, there's something - "

"Maybe I should just go home," he said despairingly. "Owen'll kill me, but it's not my fault. It's not fair!"

"Luke - "

"What?" he snapped, ripping open the bag and crunching the crispy bits. When his buddy didn't speak, he swallowed and looked closely at him. Fixer's face was abnormally pale. "What's wrong?"

His friend took a deep breath before speaking in a low voice. "Stormtroopers came. They asked me where you were. I said I didn't know. It took a while before... before they believed me. That's why I couldn't come yesterday, my folks wouldn't let me out of the house. They were - we were scared."

"They tracked you down?" Luke moaned. "That means they've gone to my place. Owen really will kill me!"

"No, he..." Fixer sighed. "We saw smoke and... Luke...the troopers went to your place. They killed Owen and Beru."

The words were incomprehensible for a moment, then the shock of them knocked him against the rough wall. He slid to the ground and landed hard on his rump, struggling to piece together the astounding words. "What?"

Fixer squatted beside him and placed one hand on his arm. It tightened painfully. "They're dead. The Imps trashed and burned the place. We went over there last night. Owen and Beru were... well, not much was left. You can't go back, Luke. There's nothing there anymore and the Imps are probably watching it."

None of it made sense. "Nothing left?" he repeated uncomprehendingly. "How can they be dead? I just - They were just - Uncle Owen's too mean to be - Why would troopers kill them?"

"They were looking for you," Fixer said in an odd tone. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything," he answered numbly. "I just wanted to know who my - "

"Who your what?"

He couldn't answer. His father was a Jedi. That heritage had been a death sentence for his guardians. He didn't want it to kill his best friend, too. Life had been better when his father had been Darth Vader.

"You're not going to tell me, are you? Okay." Fixer squeezed his arm once more before releasing it. "Whatever it is, you have to get off Tatooine. Look, take my identification papers. Be me. If they find out, I can say you stole them."

"I can't - "

"You have to," Fixer said firmly. "You can't be Luke Lars anymore."

Luke Lars, Luke Vader, Luke Skywalker... First he had three names and then, abruptly, he had no name at all. And no home.

Luke swallowed the dread that rose in his throat and accepted Fixer's ID. "Thanks," he murmured, conscious of the inadequacy of the response. "Don't get in trouble because of me."

"No problem. They didn't ask for my ID when I came into town, so there's no record that I was here today. Look, I brought you something else." Fixer reached in his full pack, dumped out more food and watersticks, a bag of loose glitt, then handed Luke a ship model. "Take this."

It was the titanium skyhopper that Fixer had struggled to build and was so proud of. Luke picked it up and cradled it against his chest. "Why?" It seemed fragile, though it was not. Maybe it felt that way because it was the only familiar thing he had left.

"In case..." Fixer cleared his throat. "We might not see each other for a long time. I just... I wanted you to have something to remember me by."

"I'll never forget you, Fix." Like he was a baby, Luke started to sniffle. He was embarrassed and struggled to choke back the sobs, but when Fixer put an arm around his shoulders and hugged him, Luke surrendered to the devastating fear and confusion he felt.

Fixer let him cry and probably shed a few tears himself, but Luke didn't look at him to find out. Eventually they separated and Fixer said gruffly, "So, you're Laze Loneozner now."

He groaned in mock displeasure. "You have the worst name ever."

"Not any more. Now you've got it." They both stood and Fixer continued, "I have to get back. I promised my folks I wouldn't stay too long. They're worried."

Luke nodded and wiped his nose on his sleeve. "Thank them for me. And thanks for...everything, Fix. We will see each other again, I promise. I'll come back some day and chase the Imps out of here."

"And the Hutts."

"Yeah, them too." They shared shaky grins.

"Be seein' you, Laze."

"You, too, Fix."

With a final awkward handclasp, they parted, Fixer heading down the street. Luke followed at a safe distance, ensuring that his best friend got safely back to his speeder.

Then he was alone.


	9. Running

Spacers Row was the best place in town to become invisible, what with all the tiny alleys that branched off its wide street. The bazaar and casino attracted beings of all species who were passing through and anxious to spend, or hopefully supplement, the credits they'd picked up in their travels. Despite the presence of the military garrison, there were no restrictions on what was bought and sold in Mos Eisley: spice, hard drugs, alcohol, counterfeit credits, pornography, people. Luke had heard rumors of unwary visiting youths being kidnapped and sold as slaves, but he knew he looked like a savvy native, one not worth the trouble his abduction might bring. Or maybe it was the blaster hanging from his belt that prevented slavers from risking an attack.

Or just maybe it was the blue and blond striped hair, which made him look certifiably insane. He caught a glimpse of himself in a tiny mirror in the bazaar and frowned, tugging the hood a little farther over his forehead. It wouldn't do to scare off a prospective ride, and it was bad enough that he was filthy and probably smelled worse than he ever had in his life. He considered stopping at a rooming house and buying a bath, but if the hair dye washed out completely, it would be easier for the Imps to identify him.

Several cautious circles of the Row later, he decided to follow the human male who had exited one of the docking bays and headed for a cantina. His arrogant attitude and swaggering stride identified him as a captain of his own vessel, and the worn clothes hinted that he could use cash.

Luke entered the crowded bar, looking around warily before approaching the table and touching the back of a chair. "Mind if I sit down?"

The spacer extended long legs and crossed his feet onto the chair with twin thuds. "Whatever you're sellin', I'm not buyin'. Get lost, kid."

Pulling a chair from an empty table and dragging it over, Luke sat a safe distance away from those boots. "I'm looking for passage."

"To where?" The man took a pull from his bottled ale.

"Wherever your next stop is." The other gave him a disinterested look, so Luke added quickly. "I can pay."

"Yeah?" There was a glimmer of interest. "How much?"

"Depends on where we're going," he replied coolly. This guy was obviously easier to barter with than your average sandperson.

"Depends on how many credits you're talking."

Stalemate. "Look, I haven't got a fortune, but I need to get out of here."

The man looked beyond him. "Lemme ask my copilot. Hey, Chewie, want to take on a passenger?"

There was a rumbling roar, and Luke leaped to his feet. A huge furry monster was towering over him, and he flinched involuntarily. A Wookiee! He'd never seen one, only read about their ferociousness. They were a lot bigger in person than they looked in holos.

The spacer shrugged in response to the roar. "Just the kid - I guess. Right, kid, just you?"

Luke nodded nervously, wrapping the cloak tightly and throwing one end over his shoulder. "Yeah, just..." He faltered. Three stormtroopers entered the cantina, laser rifles held across their chests. "Never mind. I have to - have to go." Casting frantic looks around, he couldn't see another escape.

"Never go in any place without knowing another way out," the spacer drawled. "Hallway behind me, second door on the right. We're leaving bay 94 in an hour, with or without you."

"Thanks," he breathed, then spared not another moment. The exit was where the stranger said, and in a few moments Luke found himself on Curved Street.

Running wasn't wise, but the troopers were too close and he couldn't take the chance that they would see him. Luke trotted along the street, weaving around sellers' booths and dodging speeders. Ahead of him, he could see two more armored troopers, so he ducked into a narrow alley. Racing around the corner, he collided with something solid.

A man grabbed his shoulders, either steadying him or preventing a harder impact. Luke looked up, meeting a pair of green eyes. His breath caught in his throat and he choked on it.

Jovay, the Imperial recruiter!

Quickly, Luke stared at the ground, muttered something unintelligible, and tried to move on. The grip on his shoulders didn't release. He continued focusing on the dust beneath his feet, determined to become invisible.

"Well, well, it's my young recruit. Do you know how many people are looking for you, Jedi?"

"I'm not a Jedi," he hissed. "Maybe my father was, but I never knew him. Let me go!"

"Let you go? Hmm... There's a thought. But why would I do that?"

Confused, Luke stared at the young man. "Do you want a bribe?"

"Ah, we can add attempted bribery of an Imperial officer to your list of crimes," Jovay chuckled. "Perhaps I only want the glory of capturing the dangerous Jedi."

"I'm not a - " he began furiously, then reconsidered. "If I'm really a Jedi, I could hurt you."

"Go ahead. I don't think you can do anything, but there are troopers watching us. They won't let you get away, no matter what you do to me."

Luke froze, paralyzed with a sudden rush of fear. "Not troopers! I don't want to die," he whispered. "Not yet. You don't understand - I can't help who my father is - was. Don't let them kill me - please!"

"I understand better than you know, Luke Lars Skywalker Vader," Jovay said, his voice unexpectedly soft.

Stormtrooper boots made noise even on sand. "Lieutenant?" a voice questioned excitedly. "You got him?"

Jovay looked past Luke. "It's not him, just some street punk." He released Luke's shoulders. "Get off the street, kid, and stay there. You fit the description of a dangerous fugitive we're tracking. Corporal, let the troopers know not to bother this one. He's heading home."

His eyes widened with disbelief. He didn't know Jovay, and the man was letting him go? It was too good to be true. But Jovay's eyes were kind and sympathetic, though his face was hardened in a strict military mien.

"Thanks, I won't forget this," Luke whispered, then he bowed his head and left, walking quickly around the troopers, his stride firm and steady though his heart was pounding at a wild pace.

Never trust anyone, Owen said. But today his best friend and two strangers had put themselves in danger to help him. The galaxy was a strange place indeed.

He stopped abruptly, Jovay's words suddenly registering.

Luke Lars Skywalker... _ Vader? _

Oh, krit.


	10. Luke to the Rescue

It took only a cursory check to see that troopers were guarding all the docking bays. There was no way he could get back to Spacers Row and past them to his ride. Escape would have to wait until the search cooled down. In the meanwhile, he knew of only one place to hide and that was back with the street kids. But if he gave them his credits in exchange for shelter, he wouldn't be able to buy passage later. He had to find another way.

Luke trudged back to the passage to the kids' hideout and lounged across the street, checking for troopers or spies before making his way into the gloomy entrance. Ten meters in, he found a large boulder that had been nudged aside to reveal a narrow aisle that hadn't been visible before. He could hear the echo of far-away voices and, curious, he squeezed around the rock, slipping through the passage. The dug-out hall was rough against his hands as he felt his way through the darkness toward a faint light in the distance. The voices grew louder though he could not discern the words. Then a short, high-pitched scream pierced the air, and Luke broke into a run.

The aisle opened into a large space, and he caught himself before plunging into it. Crouching behind an outcropping in the wall, he peeked around it, assessing the situation.

Children and teens, some he recognized from earlier, huddled together with their leader standing protectively in front of them. She held a short knife like she knew how to use it and faced a man dressed in the dark garb of a Rillavin hunter, creatures feared throughout the galaxy, rumored to enjoy the taste of human flesh above all others. A tiny girl lay on the sand between him and the teen leader.

"Just one," the hunter wheedled, his voice garbled by the translator he wore, "and I'll leave the rest of you."

"Tessi, get behind me," the leader ordered, but the child was too terrified to move.

The hunter reached for her, and she screamed again as his claws pierced her arms.

_Don't get involved in other people's problems,_ Owen warned, _except your neighbor's. You need your neighbors to survive._

The last thing he wanted was to get in a fight that might draw the attention of the Imps, Luke thought glumly as he drew out his blaster. But these were his neighbors, and the son of a Jedi - or even a Sith - couldn't let this scum go free. He had less humanity than a Tusken, and Luke had killed a few of those. A Rillavin deserved no mercy.

Stepping out of the shadows, he centered his aim on the bastard's center. _You may not be certain where a Tusken's heart is hidden under his cloak,_ Owen advised as they crouched behind the rocks, watching the Raiders, _so always go for a gut shot._ "Hey there," he called softly.

The Rillavin turned, then started, dropping the child when he saw the blaster. "No! I - "

Luke pulled the trigger. The monster made a startled sound that choked off as he died, the blaster burns smoking his ragged clothes. It was not so different from killing a Tusken, Luke noted remotely, though this thing was more human than a Tusken. Would it be any more difficult to kill a human? He supposed that one day he would find out.

Pushing away an unexpected sensation of queasiness, he strode over to the corpse and kicked at its feet. "I want the boots," he announced flatly, knowing he had to generate respect along with a little fear, "you can have the rest."

The youngsters were staring at him and the leader's eyes were narrowed, assessing his intentions.

"I'm staying here. I'm hiding from the Imps." He paused. "If you betray me, I'll kill you. If not, I'll protect you from dangers like this." Giving the body another kick, he smiled tightly. "Are we agreed?"

The girl nodded, resignation clear on her delicate features. "I'm Tia. I'm in charge."

_For now,_ Luke thought, then wondered if this coldness in him came from his father. If so, it was not Jedi. It was Sith... and maybe he was, too.

"What's your name?"

Luke Lars Skywalker Vader Laze Loneozner. Stifling a sigh, he struggled to find an acceptable name out of that excess. Laze...Loner...Ozner... "Oz."

"Oz," she repeated with a clipped nod and a smile that didn't touch her eyes. "You may stay here, but you must follow our rules. We will accept your protection, but none of us will sleep in your bed."

"Like I'd want you to," he retorted sarcastically, flushing. "I'm only staying until I can find a way off this - Hey, I said I want the boots!"

A young boy jumped back from the Rillavin with a guilty grin. "Sorry, Oz!"

"They wouldn't fit you anyway," Luke added in a mollifying tone. He bent down and picked up the little girl with bleeding arms. She hid her face against his chest. "You have first aid supplies?"

"Yes. Come," Tia directed, and Luke followed her deeper into the cavern, the other youngsters running ahead.

"Quite a set-up you have here," he commented. "More than you let me see earlier."

"We're not stupid enough to trust strangers!" she snapped.

"I didn't say you were."

They emerged into a single cavernous room that held a dozen more young people, and Tia lifted Tessi from his arms. "We'll tend her. You get different clothes," she directed. "Gereeza, get Oz into something more... appropriate. Do something with his hair - and for Sith's sake, show him where the bath is!"

This was one occasion when he was happy to obey orders.


End file.
